Salivary microbiome diversity in Chinese children with various caries states

This study aimed to explore oral microbiome diversity among children with various caries status based on dmft scores.

A total of 320 children aged 3-5 years were recruited, with 66 healthy children and 254 children affected by dental caries. According to dmft scores, these children with dental caries were classified as "mild group" (dmft score 1-3), "moderate group" (dmft score 4-6), and "severe group" (dmft score 7-14). Healthy children with dmft score of 0 served as control group. Illumina MiSeq sequencing was employed to analyze all salivary samples collected from these children.

The salivary microbial diversity among four groups was similar (p > 0.05). A total of five bacterial genera were highly abundant in the control group including Bergeyella, Acidimicrobiales, Acidimicrobiia, Halomonas, and Blautia (p < 0.05). For mild group, there were nine bacterial genera identified to be predominant: Porphyromonadaceae, Porphyromonas, Enterobacteriales, Enterobacteriaceae, Weissella, Leuconostocaceae, Alphaproteobacteria, Stenotrophomonas, and Rhizobiales (p < 0.05). Only one genus, Aggregatibacter was predominant in moderate group (p < 0.05). There were six bacterial genera (Alistipes, Lachnoclostridium, Escherichia-Shigella, Romboutsia, Sphingomonadales, and Denitratisoma) enriched in severe group (p < 0.05).

Oral microbial profile was different in children with various caries status based on dmft scores.

The results might be beneficial to deeply understand microbiological diversity of early childhood caries (ECC) at various stages and inform effective strategies for ECC prevention.